Talk with residents of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, long enough, and the conversation will likely turn to what isn’t in the neighborhood. There are no Starbucks in this middle-class waterfront enclave, no fancy restaurants and no luxury condominium developments.

It’s true that in the last couple of years the neighborhood’s factory district, where forklifts bounce over streets lined with train tracks, has evolved in a way that might qualify as hip. Aged warehouses now house businesses including a company that sells jewelry online and a cafe that feeds workers fresh-sliced pancetta sandwiches for lunch.

But with chain stores as scarce in the area as Citi Bikes, Sunset Park generally still seems out of step with trendier precincts. And that’s something to celebrate, residents say. “Except for the presence of cellphones, the neighborhood feels like about two decades behind the times,” said Toto Cullen, 35, a fashion photographer and director of commercials and music videos who has lived in Sunset Park since 2010. “It’s a kind of New York life that seems to be vanishing.”

Mr. Cullen, who is originally from Argentina, and his wife, Laura Karlen, a middle-school Spanish teacher, previously lived in Park Slope, but came to find that area “too homogeneous, too pricey and too boring,” he said.

After considering Crown Heights, Mr. Cullen and Ms. Karlen relocated to a two-bedroom rental in Sunset Park, and found a population that was far more diverse than that they had left behind.

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626 48TH STREET A renovated two-family rowhouse with five bedrooms, listed at $1.5 million. (917) 509-6154Credit
Clay Williams for The New York Times

Nearly 50 percent of the neighborhood is Latino, according to census figures, and about 40 percent is Asian, including many immigrants from China’s Fujian province, who have helped the blocks along Eighth Avenue emerge as one of the city’s liveliest Chinatowns. Housing costs are relatively affordable by Brooklyn standards. In 2014, Mr. Cullen and Ms. Karlen, who have a daughter, 6, and a son, 5, bought a two-bedroom one-bath co-op in a prewar walk-up for $379,000. But deals may become scarce going forward, according to some residents, who worry that waves of new workers in that redeveloped factory area will turn Sunset Park into Brooklyn’s next hot area, putting pressure on prices.

“If we lost the diversity that attracted us to the neighborhood, the place would definitely lose its magic,” said McGowan Southworth, 40, a musician and solar-power consultant who moved to Sunset Park from South Slope in 2005.

He and his wife, Viney Maykut, 37, a grant writer, and their 3-year-old daughter live in a two-bedroom co-op overlooking the leafy 24.5-acre park that gives the neighborhood its name. In 2014, their 850-square-foot prewar unit cost $355,000.

Gentrification can cut both ways, Mr. Southworth admits. His daughter takes art classes at Industry City, a 16-building, six-million-square-foot office and retail complex being created in the factory district.

But he fears that efforts to sand away Sunset Park’s industrial edges could turn it into the next Williamsburg, a transformation Mr. Southworth witnessed when he used to record in a studio there.

“Everybody looked like me,” he said. “Here, I could be more unique, and appreciate differences.”

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JAN. 20, 2016

By The New York Times

What You’ll Find

Spread along a slope with wide views to the west, Sunset Park is bounded roughly by Green-Wood Cemetery and 36th Street; Ninth Avenue; 65th Street; and Upper New York Bay. Stores pack busy avenues, and along the side streets are lines of largely intact two- and three-story rowhouses. Most date to the early 1900s.

While neglect or teardowns don’t seem to have claimed too many buildings, some are less than pristine, with vinyl siding and security bars on lower windows.

Co-ops, generally east of Sunset Park, also exist, most of them walk-ups. The brick four-story building at 816 43rd Street, built by Finnish immigrants in 1916 and called Alku for “beginning,” is believed to be the first nonprofit housing co-op in the country.

Condos also pop up and are sometimes much taller than the existing low-slung skyline, as at 859 60th Street, which predates the city’s 128-block rezoning of the area in 2009. Now, in most residential areas, nothing can be built taller than 80 feet; in some sections, the limit is 35 feet.

Down the hill, to the west of the thundering Gowanus Expressway, the factory district buzzes. Occupying 16 towering structures there is Industry City, which the developer Jamestown, of Chelsea Market fame, began reinventing with its partners in 2013, in a project budgeted at $1 billion. Andrew Kimball, the chief executive of Industry City, points out that about 4,000 people work there today, roughly twice the number of a couple of years ago. While it installs tenants, Jamestown is also seeking to rezone the area to add more retail and a pair of hotels, a controversial effort.

What You’ll Pay

On Jan. 5, there were 27 properties for sale, according to listings on StreetEasy.com, most of them townhouses or similar multifamilies. The average asking price was $1.39 million.

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269 61ST STREET A 1910 two-family with five bedrooms, two and a half baths and a yard, listed at $1.18 million. (718) 836-4330Credit
Clay Williams for The New York Times

Prices have been climbing. In 2013, the average sales price of townhouses was $746,000, according to data supplied by StreetEasy, while in 2015, that figure had shot up to $984,000.

Co-ops sold at an average of $365,000 in 2015, compared with $271,000 in 2013, StreetEasy said. Condos, meanwhile, jumped to $388,000 in 2015 from an average of $277,000 in 2013.

Rentals, which are usually found in townhouses, average $1,500 a month for one-bedrooms and $2,000 for two-bedrooms, according to Mary Kae Higgins, an associate broker with Coldwell Banker Reliable.

Several public elementary schools serve the neighborhood, including Public School 169, which has about 1,615 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. On state exams last year, 31 percent of students met standards in English, versus 30 percent citywide, according to city data. In math, 51 percent met standards, versus 39 percent citywide.

For middle school, many head to Sunset Park Prep on Fourth Avenue, which enrolls about 520 students. On state English exams last year, 32 percent of students met standards, compared with 30 percent citywide. On math exams, 46 percent met standards, compared with 31 percent citywide.

The Commute

The D train stops at Ninth Avenue and 39th Street as well as at 36th Street and Fourth Avenue; the R train is at 36th Street, 45th Street, 53rd Street and 59th Street, all at Fourth Avenue; and the N is at 36th Street and 59th Street at Fourth Avenue, and at Eighth Avenue and 62nd Street. A trip to Midtown takes 30 to 40 minutes.

The station at Eighth Avenue and 62nd Street will be served by a temporary platform during an M.T.A. construction project set to begin this month.

The History

The largely Scandinavian population that filled the neighborhood from the late 19th to the mid-20th century has mostly receded, though some organizations hang on, like the Danish Athletic Club, founded in 1892 and located on 65th Street. But few are likely to refer to the area as Little Norway anymore.